The hopes of the French Revolution were most keenly felt by their Catholic coreligionists in Ireland. Using revolutionary universalism to surmount long-standing religious differences, the United Irishmen were founded in 1791 to create a new political network for substantive reforms. The network faced suppression after the 1793 Declaration of War, however, and reorganized into militant underground militia cells. Seeking aid from the French government for a militant uprising, the United Irish ultimately rose with disastrous results in 1798.